A few weeks ago, Gordon Brown took overall charge of a government crusade against binge drinking. And in the process, he sidelined some of his ministers whose departments have most interest in the problem.
These are, in no particular order, the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Treasury and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, who bizarrely handle alcohol licensing.
So it was natural for the Federation of Wholesale Distributors to write to the Prime Minister directly in late February about two specific proposals that wholesalers believe would help to alleviate this dire social malaise in double quick time.
The first measure we called for is a voluntary code to stop retailers, wholesalers and the on-trade selling alcohol at below cost. FWD sees this as a relatively simple way to stem a large part of the problem. To put this in perspective, one only has to look at the Big Four's aggressive stance on the selling of alcohol at key trading times such as Christmas and football events.
Over last Christmas this was particularly dramatic, and we cited examples of heavy discounting such as Morrisons selling two litres of Bells Whisky for £20 and Asda selling 54 cans of Fosters and Carling for the same money. Respectively, these below cost offers meant that the price per unit of alcohol was 25p on spirit and 21p on beer.
Plainly this creates a crazy situation in terms of sensible drinking, and promotions like these that encourage consumers to buy far greater amounts of booze than they would normally, should be curtailed.
Therefore, we welcome the fact that Tesco, one of the main perpetrators of this kind of below cost selling over the years, has announced that it is volunteering to address the issue.
The second concern we raised with the PM was the availability of duty-avoided stock and black-market alcohol that in some cases is reaching the public after it has been re-circulated through legitimate traders. To counter this, FWD believes that wholesale licensing of alcohol should be carefully controlled, and it has recommended that the requirements for gaining a licence should be raised.
We have also suggested the development of another voluntary code to ensure that BWS manufacturers are required to supply only to legitimate wholesalers and retailers. And so, we await a considered response from Number 10 eagerly.
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